Dark Mysteries: Looking at Dark Matter and Dark Energy

One of my favorite computer wallpapers is an eerie and beautiful turquoise and gold image of the Helix Nebula, famously known as the “Eye of God.” As a kid, I was always mind-boggled by the outer space and in those quintessentially curious and fickle years of my childhood, I often played fancifully with the idea of becoming an astronaut and exploring the celestial heavens to see for myself what Earth’s skies concealed. However, even the most powerful telescope images cannot always tell us everything about the universe. Indeed, some its larger mysteries are rather “dark” indeed, so to speak. In fact, what are known as darkmatter and darkenergy, though foreign to us in our own home planet, actually constitute the majority of our universe.

Take a look at a (rather fantastically stunning) clip from The History Channel segment on these dark mysteries: